AU Milliways

[therighttime]

The door opens from one pub to the next. A rosy-tinted, warm little English pub filled to the brim with uniformed soldiers and local girls, crowing and laughing and being alive, really feeling it for the first time in longer than any of them would like to admit.

The woman who is leaving that particular pub is tall - very tall, inches over six feet - shapely in her 1940s olive dress uniform. Her make-up is fresh, her tie in perfect order, her hair is even curled in classic victory rolls (it took three showgirls three hours to make it happen, but they're all used to it by now).

Stephanie Rogers is grinning, flush-faced and filled with joy as she waves to a dark-haired soldier at the bar and steps purposefully into -- another bar.

She recognizes a shift, a difference immediately, and keeps one hand on the knob even as she frowns thoughtfully at the room around her.

Comments

[therighttime]

Steph nods seriously. "It is, but no one's called me that since my ma was around. Synthia is a pretty name."

[abyssum_invocat]

"It's what my father named me," she says, a coldness creeping into her voice that belies her feelings towards her father.

She wonders for a second, cynically, if this woman is speaking of her own mother in past tense because she might know who Synthia is. It's a war; nothing is ever certain.

[therighttime]

That coldness is awful telling in such a small girl. Steph's expression softens, her eyes resting on the girl. She's trying not to show pity - what child would want to see it?

She smiles instead.

"My mother was named Sarah," is what she decides on. And keeps her smile bright, in memory. "I guess I have a fondness for S-names."

A nod is given to the marbles between Synthia's hands. "Do you play?"

[abyssum_invocat]

She shakes her head slowly.

"My father's name is Johann. I don't know what my mother's name was," she says quietly. "I just wanted to practice some."

[therighttime]

"...do you want to learn? I used to play, when I was your age."

[abyssum_invocat]

Steph gets a very dubious look and Synthia leans away, concerned. "What do you do?" she asks, envisioning having them pelted at her in some kind of test--one of how strong her shielding ability is, maybe? She doesn't know and isn't sure she wants to find out.

[therighttime]

Steph's shoulders pull back, putting even that small amount of space between them just for the child's comfort. She keeps her smile but it's a little more forced, trying so hard to comfort. She doesn't know who Synthia is, who her father is, but she's seen the behavior enough to know she wants nothing to do with encouraging it.

"It's easier on pavement, with a chalk circle - the circle's your board. You try to knock the other player's marbles out of the circle by flicking at them. Like this," she says, reaching out to very gently nudge her thumb against one of the marbles, "only harder."

Steph's smile fades a touch, nostalgia making it warm. "Kids could get real mean about it. When your marbles leave the ring, you're supposed to lose them to the other player and I never had that many, so I didn't really play with anyone but my best friend. He wouldn't take them away even if he won."

[abyssum_invocat]

Synthia frowns, but reaches out to mimic the nudge to one of the marbles in the plastic mesh bag. When she pulls her hand away, she seems to be focusing very intently on the glass sphere and, lo and behold, it moves.

It's as if an invisible thumb is pushing it, making the rest of the marbles rattle. She pulls the top of the bag open, and a few rise up slowly to hover in the air. "I don't know any other children. None of the soldiers would be allowed to play with me."

[therighttime]

Steph startles a bit, blinking at the marbles but- no, she hadn't seen it right. She couldn't have. She's just rough off little sleep, a long walk, and everything that's happened the last few days. That's all.

Besides, every word Synthia speaks breaks her heart a little bit more.

"There's some kids around here," Steph points out, glancing over her shoulder at the rest of the bar. She leans on the counter, arms folded, her pristine dress uniform wrinkling at the elbows as her shoulders hunch to look a little smaller, less intimidating. "I could teach you how to start with, and maybe you could make friends with some of them?"

[abyssum_invocat]

Well. They're still floating there, and Synthia's watching them with her head cocked, making one knock against the other, and launch it into her hands. When Stephanie speaks again, though, her attention refocuses and the other marble drops.

She studies that uniform, tries to make sense of the ribbons and things. "You're an American," she says, not so much a question as a flat statement. "Are you trying to fight my father?"

[therighttime]

But Steph is finally paying attention to the marbles, eyes wide as they lift-- and drop, only when Synthia looks at her. Her lips part, jaw dropped just slightly, but a glance at the girl tells her that this is only something weird for one of them. And after what she's seen, the place she led Bucky and those other men out of, Steph imagines there are a lot of things in this world beyond her understanding right now.

The important thing, as far as she can tell, is that Synthia isn't hurting anyone. She isn't dangerous right now.

And really, who is Steph to judge a girl with a few extra abilities?

"I, ah," she says awkwardly, gathering her bearings. "I'm American, yes. I'm a captain in the army."

A real captain.

"I don't know who your father is. I suppose I might be, if he's fighting against America in the war."

[abyssum_invocat]

Synthia has the ability to be dangerous, yes, but she doesn't much care for it.

She turns back to Steph and sighs almost inaudibly, marble still cold in her hands and only very slowly warming. "Johann Schmidt," she says. She's heard the talk when the soldiers don't think anyone will hear them--Synthia's never repeated any of it, but she knows it could get them in trouble. "The Red Skull."

[therighttime]

Those fair blue eyes Synthia noticed so early on are even more prominent with how wide they are in an instant.

"He's-"

Johann Schmidt has a daughter. Erskine never- the doctor never said anything about the man having a family, never said anything about a child still alive or with abilities like this.

"W-well now. That's-"

Steph stops herself. Tries to get her words, her face, her tone under control. She's not certain she succeeds but she won't punish the girl for being honest with her. So Steph pauses and swallows and pulls her shoulders back enough to look Synthia in the eye, to give her that much respect.

"...yes. Yes, I'm fighting against your father."

[abyssum_invocat]

Synthia herself has brown eyes. They're flecked with bright blue, and they're serene, much like the girl they belong to. "Good," she murmurs.

"He's planning something very big. And dangerous."

[therighttime]

Good. Says a girl against her own father. And with such a father.

Steph meets those stunning eyes, the girl looking far too old for her size and her face.

She nods solemnly, taking this news as seriously as she would from any one of her men, or even Colonel Philips himself.

"Yes. You're right. But we're going to find out what it is, Synthia. And we're going to stop him."

[abyssum_invocat]

She takes a breath; Synthia knows this is treason, or something like it. She shouldn't say things about her own father, but she has to--people that don't deserve it are going to get hurt. And there's no love lost between her and Johann, none at all.

"I could tell you if you'll teach me to play marbles?"

[therighttime]

Steph blinks, gentling. She has to lace her hands together in her lap to stop from reaching out and touching the girl.

"I'll teach you to play if you want me to," she says, her voice gentle but very firm. This is the truth in the way that only Captain America is ever so earnest. "You don't have to give me anything to get that."

[abyssum_invocat]

"I don't want him to win," she says, looking away at last. "I don't like him, and I don't want him to kill everybody in America."

Synthia says it so calmly, so assuredly, that you could think she'd been planning this for months. She hasn't, because not one of the allied soldiers that have come near her father's forces has ever survived.

[therighttime]

Forget being careful.

Steph's hand is large and warm and very gentle as it covers Synthia's, head ducked to try and look her in the eye. Her hair's still in curls for the time being, but the important part is that it's pinned back securely and the girl will have a good view of her face, will be able to see how much Steph wants to reassure her.

"You can tell me whatever you want to tell me. And I'll always listen, okay?"

[abyssum_invocat]

Synthia bites her lip and rolls the tiny hard ball between her fingers. It feels like another interrogation even if she knows it isn't.

But she takes a breath and begins to talk, about everything with the Tesseract and the Valkyrie and Johann's plans, in no particular order. She doesn't know everything, but what Synthia has heard and remembers is important. It could change the war, depending on who hears her and what they do.

[therighttime]

Steph might have only just been made an officer, and only a captain at that, but she's more famous than any other and the first woman to have the title ever.

Synthia might have just told the one person who needed to hear it to get something done.

The Tesseract isn't something she understands beyond 'it is dangerous' and the need to get it away from Schmidt and Germany as soon as possible. The Valkyrie is more in line with that she was warned about, what she was expecting joining the war. And Schmidt's plans, mad as they are, fit just as well into what the doctor told her.

So she can keep her head where she is, in this bar with this girl, while also taking the mental notes needed to prepare a report and a plan for Philips later.

Steph looks at Synthia, she gives her all of her attention, and her hand stays over the smaller one on top of a bar, resting without pressing down, making it easy for Synthia to pull away if she wants to.

And when she's finished, when she's said all she's going to say, Steph ducks her head again, searching for eye contact.

So she can say a quiet, heart-felt, "Thank you."

[abyssum_invocat]

Synthia, when she falls quiet, takes a long while to get her breath.

"I don't want to go back there." What if Steph never comes? What if someone finds out she told the Americans their biggest secrets? What if, what if, what if...

[therighttime]

Steph's heart stutters.

"I don't know what this place is," she says softly, tapping the counter softly with her free hand, "or what it means that we come here. But if you can't stay here, if you have to go back... Synthia, I'm going to do everything I can to find you. I'm a captain in the Army and I'm going to tell my Colonel who you are, where you are, and I'm going to insist he send a team to find you."

[abyssum_invocat]

"He outranks you," she says quietly.

"What if he won't let you?"

[therighttime]

"I'll throw a fit," Steph replies immediately, smirking a little. It's everyone's fear, with a woman on the team, and damn right she'd do it.

But there's something else, too.

"Do you, um. Do you know Captain America?"